PEORIA — City officials who chose retribution instead of protecting the constitutional rights of a citizen who created a parody Twitter account of the mayor need to be corrected by a federal judge.

That’s the goal of a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of Jon Daniel, the creator of the @peoriamayor account, said an attorney for the ACLU at a news conference Thursday detailing the suit.

“Your city fathers need a lesson,” said Harvey Grossman, the legal director of the ACLU of Illinois. “The speech that Jon engaged in was clearly protected. … This did not require a constitutional scholar.”

The real Mayor Jim Ardis, who is named as a respondent in the lawsuit and who sought the police action taken over the Twitter account, had a news conference of his own hours after the ACLU announcement.

He reiterated his belief that his identity was stolen and his rights violated — and the media were to blame for “mischaracterizations” of the case that “caused harm to our great city and serious threats against me and my family.”

The mayor also said he was exploring counter legal action “against those responsible for the placing and hosting of the libelous comments.”

Ardis did not elaborate whether that meant he would seek damages from Daniel or Twitter or both. The mayor said at the beginning of his news conference that he would not take questions and would not address the issue publicly again until the ACLU lawsuit is resolved.

“I will protect my rights and the rights of my family at all costs,” Ardis said.

Daniel created the @peoriamayor Twitter account in March using a photo of Ardis and tweeted about sex, drugs and a profane pride in the city of Peoria. City officials noticed it almost immediately and took measures to shut it down, from threatening Twitter with a lawsuit to applying a misdemeanor charge of impersonating a public official to the situation to obtain search warrants for the account and, ultimately, Daniel’s home at 1220 N. University St.

The house was searched April 15, and police seized several electronic devices with Internet access. Officers also claimed to have found marijuana and arrested Daniel’s roommate, Jacob Elliott, on a felony charge of possessing 30 to 500 grams of the drug.

Daniel, however, was never charged.

After the raid and a firestorm of international media coverage, Peoria County State’s Attorney Jerry Brady determined the impersonation statute didn’t apply to the situation because it happened online rather than in person.

Page 2 of 2 - Grossman said that determination, while correct, missed the larger picture of what happened to Daniel — and all citizens who reside in the city of Peoria. Police invaded a home and took property because of constitutionally protected speech, and that action has a widespread chilling effect on public discourse critical of public officials.

Those public officials — Ardis, City Manager Patrick Urich, Assistant City Manager Chris Setti, Police Chief Steve Settingsgaard and detectives Stevie Hughes Jr. and James Feehan are listed as defendants in the suit, though more could be added later — also have never publicly acknowledged mistakes in the handling of the incident. No one has contacted Daniel directly about the situation. An appropriate response would be an apology, not self-affirmation, Grossman said.

Daniel, who in the suit lists anxiety and a reduced amount of time with his two young sons as consequences of the raid, said he had one main goal for the legal action: “I just want the right thing to happen. I got caught in the middle of it.”

Matt Buedel can be reached at 686-3154 or mbuedel@pjstar.com. Follow him on Twitter @JournoBuedel.